


A spot of quick light

by Petra



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-09
Updated: 2008-02-09
Packaged: 2019-09-20 09:43:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17020335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Petra/pseuds/Petra
Summary: Simon Illyan suffers from iatrogenic confusion.





	A spot of quick light

**Author's Note:**

> Mamadeb commented about Aral's sexuality. Betty suggested this possibility. Carla listened. Te cheered.

"The Emperor will --"

A soft laugh, heavy with pain, not amusement. "Ezar has never scrupled to use me for his own ends, and my reputation be damned."

And the kiss that followed was just as painful, in its way, as the laughter.

Simon shook his head and pushed the memory, if it was a memory, aside. Too many fragments had come back to him that made no sense at all, and while it was not a case of what the techs referred to as iatrogenic schizophrenia, it was certainly iatrogenic confusion. The doctor who had installed the departed chip in his head was nearly as responsible for the gaps in his present comprehension as the former emperor Ezar, who had ordered the surgery.

Simon was, as ever, their tool and their fool, and the more flashes came back to him, the stranger the present looked. Alys, who lay beside him in their shared bed, had a frown marring her lovely face that he regretted immediately. "What did you remember?" she asked him.

He knew the voice that had answered him as well as his own; better, for he had once had nearly as many days of recordings of it in his mind. The kiss was somewhat incongruous with his other memories of Aral Vorkosigan, but given the timeframe of the memory -- Ezar, in the present tense -- it was impossible to be certain what was real.

"I think it was a dream," he said, and she squeezed his shoulder.

"Commodore Vorkosigan," Alys said. "I would need a history textbook to put that in its proper month, but I can place the year, at least." She kissed his cheek. "At least you weren't worrying over Miles this time."

"Ah." Simon smiled at her in the dim light. "Is that what I said, then?"

"Yes. Was it a bad dream, then?"

The touch of his mouth --

Simon remembered more than that, and more vividly. It had not been a dream at all.

"No," Simon said. "One of the few bright moments of that era, I would say."

Alys smiled back. "Then you shouldn't have too much trouble getting back to sleep?"

He could rarely find a dream's thread once he woke up, and most of the time he was just as pleased to let them go. This once, he regretted it. "Not at all," he said, and settled himself to try.  



End file.
